Mr. James Scanlon:

The Defence Act is a serious impediment to us. A unit of reservists was heavily involved in an IT system and needed to be deployed to Germany for an international exercise. Those people were due to deploy but the Department of Defence forbade them from doing so and cited the Defence Act. It was seen as overseas service to go to Germany for one week for an exercise. It affected the Defence Forces.

We have a doctor in the Reserve Defence Force. He joined the Defence Forces as a direct entry doctor. He was recruited because they needed someone to go to Africa at the time. They did not have enough doctors on staff. He was brought in and given a conversion course and was sent to Africa. It was a serious mission and when he finished his six-month deployment, they asked him if he would be interested in staying on as a reservist and he agreed. They reduced his rank from commandant to lieutenant and put him into the Reserve. The week before he had been the number one medical person in charge of 500 or 600 people. If something went wrong - there were tropical diseases, people could have a gunshot wound or whatever - he was the person on point and everybody trusted him to do that job. He had to resign his commission in the Permanent Defence Force and he was then commissioned into the Reserve Defence Force with a new number and so on but he was not authorised to do a medical. If anybody walked in, he was unqualified. Obviously, he was as qualified as he was the day before but he was now unqualified under the regulations to carry out even a medical. The Defence Forces medical staff are under pressure and we have people like that but they are not considered qualified. They wanted him to go overseas again. He had to resign his Reserve commission, he was commissioned back into the Permanent Defence Force as a commandant and he was sent overseas. When he came back, he had to resign his commission and he is now a lieutenant who is not allowed to do a medical. They take reservists and put them on the shelf. They really do not want to use them.

The only people who can change that are the people in this building. The Department will say it is in the Act and there is nothing it can do about it. We would like to change this so that the Chief of Staff has a bigger pick. He can decide not to use the Reserve or to use it. As it stands today, he has no choice. He does not have the pick of the Reserve if he wants to use it, except by contorting the regulations in order to do so. We are asking the legislators to look at our proposed amendment.